Prompt-pourri is a webpage collection of class prompt exercises useful for "first-day-class" activities and
other writing applications employing prompts. In English, "potpourri" is often used to refer to any collection of miscellaneous or diverse items.
In like manner, this collection provides the same with regard to prompt writing. Click here for
promptpourri.

Click here for a helpful dictionary of
word synonyms.(Note: The Word Web Application must have previously been
installed from the Developmental Educators' Handbook
Home Page.)

The Prompt Preparation Process

The following content sets forth an orderly approach to preparing class prompts utilizing the
Developmental Educators' Handbook as well as the Internet. The example composes (authors)
a prompt dealing with tattoos. It employs the DEH Readability Calculator and prompt public
domain resources such as The Voice of America web site and Wikipedia.

Background: The word “prompt”
has synonyms meaningful for developmental education.Used as a verb, “prompt” speaks of
motivating, persuading, encouraging, and even prodding.As a noun, its meaning is not nearly as
appropriate:a cue or reminder. Focusing on prompt as an action verb defines a successful prompt’s attributes:

Persuading:Who enjoys reading or writing about a dull
subject?Ifthewriter is an archeologist, an article about finding a bone fossil is useful.However, others, might find it uninspiring.Alternatively, consider a pithy news expose
about the pros and cons of tattoos or body piercing.Most teens and adultshold views, pro and con, likely to
make a worthy topic for a prompt.

Therefore, the
challenge from the onset is “prompt” topic selection.Instructors wanting well-read students must
themselves be well-read.This means
reading the newspaper, online or offline, as well as popular periodicals.These “prompt-persuaders” appear in the
campus or school library as well as neighborhood book stores.

Motivating:Perhaps, the word “cue” as a meaning of the
noun prompt is best in this
case.In pool or billiards, the “cue” is
the instrument or stick which propels the ball.While it is not the ball, the cue gets the
ball moving in the right direction.Likewise, a prompt needs a motivator or cue.This is the news article orbackground narrative.It becomes the student’s resource for a
negative or positive prompt argument.

Unfortunately,
copyright law precludes use of the most provocative articles. However, there
are sufficient public domain articles posted by the VOICE OF AMERICA for prompt
authors.

For example, go
to:http://www.voanews.com/english/index.cfm , the address for VOA’s news site.Enter in the search box, the word “tattoo”
and the following appears:

Love of Tattoos Marks
Young Americans

Tattoos, once the body art of choice for
sailors, motorcycle gang members and other tough guys, have gone mainstream. As evidenced by any trip to the beach, tattoos
are literally everywhere on today's youth. According to a Harris
poll, almost one out of five Americans has tattoos, and, unlike the past,
women are just as likely as men to get tattooed, or "inked."
VOA's Adam Phillips takes a look.

There are some common, all-too-human reasons why people choose to get
"inked," whatever their gender. For some, it is a broken heart.
Others want to celebrate the birth of a child. Others just want to express some
teenage angst.

According to master tattooist Scott Campbell, the proprietor of the upscale "Saved
Tattoo" parlor in Brooklyn, people who get tattooed usually "have
something they want to communicate with the rest of the world and tattooing is
a way of putting a message out there."

There are plenty of ways to express that
message. On Campbell's walls are displays of tattoo stencils and fantastical
drawings varied enough to suit almost any customer - from wild fire-eating
dragons to Polynesian geometrical motifs to portraits of famous artists, poets
and playwrights such as Samuel Beckett.

Memorial to a Loved One

Nick, a bicyclist from San Francisco, is preparing to get a giant tattoo of a
redwood tree on his side. He says it will be in memory of his late brother, an
avid California outdoorsman.

"My feelings for my brother and how much I loved him and cared about him
are going to be with me for the rest of my life," he says. "Now
I can wake up in the morning, put my shirt on [see the redwood tree] tattoo and
say 'Yeah! There is that thing my brother loved.'"

Liz shows
off the Chinese watercolor tattoo on her arm and the owl tattoo on her
hip

Nick's friend Liz has nearly life-sized
owls grasping dandelions and thistles tattooed on her hips. She says they
symbolize the wisdom and endurance she needed after a bad breakup. And Liz is
especially proud of a large tattoo on her left arm, rendered in the style of a
traditional Chinese watercolor.

"I originally started with just this bird," she says, pointing to the
multi-colored image. "And it sort of has a seasonal theme where it's
spring and then summer. And then, just two weeks ago, I got the top part
finished with the winter and the fall with the horse and the rabbits."

For Liz says it is not the symbolism, but the style of the tattoo, that appeals
to her most.

In Search of a Unique Image

Personal styling in tattoos is important to today's young adults. Even a decade
ago, many were content to get a simple rose, a butterfly, or some other stock
tattoo image from a book. "That's no longer true," says Anna D'Agrosa, a consumer trends expert at the Zandl Group in New York, who sports a visible and
a hidden tattoo of her own.

"What we're finding is that young adults are not necessarily hopping into
a tattoo shop on a Friday night, unplanned, and picking out something off the
wall." "Rather," says D'Agrosa, "they're intricately designing and thinking
about what they want, and really planning it."

Jamie Dwyer
designed his own tattoo

Because tattoos are permanent, caution is
the byword for Jamie Dwyer, 29. Like many in his generation, he chose his first
tattoo impulsively. So he carefully designed his next tattoo himself; it's an
abstract pattern of leaves, birds and geometric shapes that covers parts of his
right arm and shoulder. It took about six months to settle on that
design.
"It's my artwork. And that that's important to me, as far as choosing
something that's going to be with you for the rest of your life."

Customer trust is something that Myles Karr, a master tattooist with a giant
octopus and fireflies on his arm, takes seriously. "You are working in an
industry where there are no mistakes [and] …
no going backwards. You have to take your time and make sure it looks
good!"

Tattooist Myles Karr concentrates intensely on the
tattoos he creates; there are no second chances in his business

Modern health regulations require that
tattoo shops keep their equipment clean. Needles must be sterile to prevent
skin infections, blood borne diseases and other problems.

Tattoo Culture Steeped in Superstition

However, many aficionados still feel a nostalgic connection to American tattooing's early days, when sailors would get drunk in
foreign ports and stumble into a back alley parlor. They'd emerge with crude
hearts and anchors etched on their arms, or huge
tattoo portraits of Jesus across their backs so their shipboard taskmasters
might be a bit gentler when lashing them.

"There are all kinds of really amazing superstitions and stories that
evolved from that culture," says tattooist Scott Campbell. "For
example, old sailors used to get a rooster on one foot and a pig on the other
foot and supposedly that was to protect you from drowning. Who knows how that
got started?"

Campbell acknowledges that we live in a different era, but adds "I'm
still very proud to be a part of tattooing because of the history it has, and
whatever it has evolved into now,"

Outsider Appeal Continues

Today, tattoos are part of the American mainstream. Some celebrities wear them
proudly, and there are reality TV shows devoted to the art. Yet tattoos still
retain some of their outsider appeal. They are popular with outlaw motorcycle
clubs like the Hell's Angels, street gangs and prisoners.

Beau Velasco is a highly respected tattoo
artist at the Black Ink Tattoo Gallery in Harlem whose body bears inked
patterns and scrawls almost everywhere except his face. He says when he was a boy, he admired pirates, and that that, in a sense, is who
he has grown up to be.

"By getting fully tattooed, past your collar line and down your hands, you
are pretty much saying to the world 'I am not prepared to fall into line, with
a regular 'nine to five' rat race sort of job," Velasco says with a
chuckle. "It's your commitment to yourself to 'keep it real.'"

Excellent
pro-con arguments pepper the above narrative, ideal for the student’s prompt
paper.After reading the article, plan
to capture the best sentence(s) to introduce the prompt topic to the
student.Actually, the article title is
a good place to start.In this case, the
words “Young Americans” and “love” are clues to possible motivating prompt
questions:

Why do young Americanslove tattoos more than adults?In a two page, five paragraph essay support
your explanation using the above article, as well as your own ideas to make
your case.

Reading
the article reveals additional prompt lead-ins such as:Why or why not do more women than men choose
tattoos?Is the tattoo trend only among
youth or also among adults?Explain in a
two page essay your answer with supports from the article and your personal
experience.

Because
the above article can be freely accessed, used, and printed by both student and
instructor, the VOA website is an invaluable resource for prompt
preparation.In fact, the above article
resulted from a similar feature in the Houston
Chronicle about tattooed individuals seeking tattoo removal before job
interviews.Rather than paraphrasing and
rewriting the Chronicle article for a
prompt narrative, the authors sought a similar news article done by VOA
reporters.

Similarly, this
works for other copyrighted articles ideal for a prompt.Choose a “buzz-word” or phrase to enter in
the VOA search field.Often, an
alternative public domain article comes forth.The Voice of America team provides invaluable English language resources
for the developmental educator. They are a credit to not only American English
instructors but to students around the globe wanting to learn English as a
second language.

* *
* * *

Having
both selected the tattoo prompt background article and crafted the prompt,let’s determine
their readability level.Indeed, too
erudite an article defeats the purpose of a prompt: to persuade and motivate
the writer. Using the DEH Readability Calculator on the VOA article yields the
following result:

While the
average word length is altogether suitable to a developmental reading/writing
class, the grade level is a bit high, eleventh grade plus.An ideal grade level would be eighth
grade.The reason for the elevated VOA
ease level is the sentence length, nearly 24 words.This makes comprehension more difficult than
needed.To correct the situation, the
instructor might edit the VOA article slightly for shorter sentences.

Now, let’s
test the readability of the DEH authors’ narrative using the readability
calculator.Below is the result.

The above is somewhat less complex.A9.63 grade level is appropriate.All developmental educators have a greater than
sophomore high school experience.However, an average word length of 1.65 is a bit much. A word-length of 1.5syllables is ideal on the “gobbledygook”
scale.To simplify, multi-syllable words
need to be removedor
replaced with single syllable synonyms.

Below areedited version of
both articles. These serve as examples for improving readability:

(Edited
) Love of Tattoos Marks Young Americans

Tattoos were once the body art of choice
for sailors.Also motorcycle gang
members and other tough guys had them.But now these groupshave gone mainstream.Take
a trip to anybeach.
Tattoos are literally everywhere on today's youth.According to a Harris
poll, almost one out of five Americans has tattoos.Unlike the past, women are just as likely as
men get to get tattooed. ("inked)." VOA's
Adam Phillips takes a look.

There are some common human reasons why people choose to get "inked."
This is whatever their gender. For some, it is a broken heart. Others
want to celebrate the birth of a child. Others just want to express some
teenage angst.

Master tattooist Scott Campbell is the proprietor of the upscale "Saved
Tattoo" parlor in Brooklyn. He thinks people get tattooed because:
“They want to communicate something with the rest of the world. Tattooing is a
way of putting a message out there."

There are plenty of ways to express that
message.On Campbell's walls are
displays of tattoo stencils and fantastical drawings.They arevaried enough to suit almost any
customer.They range from wild
fire-eating dragons to Polynesian geometrical motifs.There are even portraits of famous artists,
poets and playwrights such as Samuel Beckett.

Memorial to a Loved One

Nick isa
bicyclist from San Francisco.He is
preparing to get a giant tattoo of a redwood tree on his side. He says it will
be in memory of his late brother.His
brother was an avid California outdoorsman.

"My feelings for my brother and how much I loved him and cared about him
are going to be with me for the rest of my life," he says. "Now
I can wake up in the morning, put my shirt on [see the redwood tree] tattoo and
say 'Yeah! There is that thing my brother loved.'"

Nick's friend Liz has nearly life-sized
owls grasping dandelions and thistles tattooed on her hips. She says they
symbolize the wisdom and endurance she needed after a bad breakup. And Liz is
especially proud of a large tattoo on her left arm, rendered in the style of a
traditional Chinese watercolor.

"I originally started with just this bird," she says, pointing to the
multi-colored image. "And it sort of has a seasonal theme where it's
spring and then summer. And then, just two weeks ago, I got the top part
finished with the winter and the fall with the horse and the rabbits."

For Liz says it is not the symbolism, but the style of the tattoo, that appeals
to her most.

In Search of a Unique Image

Personal styling in tattoos is important to today's young adults. Even a decade
ago, many were content to get a simple rose, a butterfly, or some other stock
tattoo image from a book. "That's no longer true," says Anna D'Agrosa, a consumer trends expert at the Zandl Group in New York, who sports a visible and
a hidden tattoo of her own.

"What we're finding is that young adults are not necessarily hopping into
a tattoo shop. This is nota Friday night, unplanned, something picked off the wall."
"Rather," says D'Agrosa,
"they're intricately designing and thinking about what they want.
They are really planning it."

Tattoos are permanent.So, caution is the byword for Jamie Dwyer,
29. Like many in his generation, he chose his first tattoo impulsively. So he
carefully designed his next tattoo himself.It's an abstract pattern of leaves, birds and geometric shapes. His
tattoo covers parts of his right arm and shoulder. It took about six months to
settle on that design. "It's my artwork. And that's important to
me.You’rechoosing something that's going to be
with you for the rest of your life."

Customer trust is something that Myles Karr, takes seriously,He is a master tattooist with a giant
octopus and fireflies on his arm. "You are working in an industry where
there are no mistakes [and] no going backwards.
You have to take your time and make sure it looks good!"

However, many aficionados still feel a nostalgic connection to American tattooing's early days. This was when sailors would get
drunk in foreign ports and stumble into a back alley parlor. They'd emerge with
crude hearts and anchors etched on their arms. They would havehuge tattoo portraits of Jesus across
their backs.They hoped this would make
their shipboard taskmasters a bit gentler when lashing them.

"There are all kinds of really amazing superstitions and stories that
evolved from that culture," says tattooist Scott Campbell. "For
example, old sailors used to get a rooster on one foot and a pig on the other
foot.Supposedly that was to protect you
from drowning. Who knows how that got started?"

Campbell acknowledges that we live in a different era.So he adds "I'm
still very proud to be a part of tattooing. This is because of the history it
has, and whatever it has evolved into now,"

Outsider Appeal Continues

Today, tattoos are part of the American mainstream. Some celebrities wear them
proudly.Also, there are reality TV
shows devoted to the art. Yet tattoos still retain some of their outsider
appeal. They are popular with outlaw motorcycle clubs like the Hell's Angels,
street gangs and prisoners.

Beau Velasco is a highly respected tattoo
artist at the Black Ink Tattoo Gallery in Harlem.His body bears inked patterns and scrawls
almost everywhere except his face. He says when he was a boy, he admired pirates.That, in a sense, is who he has grown up to
be.

"By getting fully tattooed.Going
past your collar line and down your hands, you … saying to the world, 'I am not
prepared to fall into line, with a regular 'nine to five' rat race sort of
job," Velasco says with a chuckle. "It's your commitment to yourself
to 'keep it real.'"

Note: By
reducing a number of sentences in length, the readability level descended
dramatically.Originally, the article
had a readability level of 11.21 with an average sentence length of nearly 24
words. The edit chopped up complex compound sentences, lengthy appositives and
lists into simple sentences This reduced the readability level to an
understandable seventh grade student’s reading ability.The average word length remained the
same.

Simplifying Author’s Article:

The
rework of the authors’ explanatory narrative reduced word length. The process
eliminated multi-syllable words.Here
is the edited version which achieved a word length of 1.56.This in turn reduced the readability ease
level to 7.60 slightly less than an eighth grade education.In substituting shorter
words, the authors, likewise, crafted shorter sentences.This led to a reduction in sentence length
from 14.64 to 12.35 words.Gobbydygook has gotta go!

The
simplified article follows:

Background: The word “prompt”
has meanings useful for developmental education.Used as a verb, “prompt” speaks of
motivating, persuading, encouraging, and even prodding.As a noun, its meaning is less telling:a cue or
reminder. Thinking of prompt as averb better defines it:

Persuading:Who enjoys reading or writing about a dull
subject?Ifthewriter studies old bones, an article about a fossil works.However, others,
might find it a bore.But, consider a
“juicy” tale about the pros and cons of tattoos.Most teens and adultshold views, pro and con, likely to
make this a worthy topic for a prompt.

Therefore, the
goal from the onset is choosing the best “prompt” topic.To get a well-read student calls fora well-read
teacher.This means reading the
newspaper as well as popular periodicals.These “prompt-persuaders” are in the campus or school library and localbook
stores.

Motivating:Perhaps, the word “cue” as a meaning of prompt is best.In a pool hall, the “cue” is the stick which
propels the ball.While it is not the
ball, the cue gets the ball moving in the right direction.Likewise, a prompt needs a motivator or
cue.This is the news article orbackground
narrative.It becomes the student’s
resource for a pro or con prompt argument.

Sadly, copyright
law bans use of most provocative articles. But, there are useful public domain
articles.The VOICE OF AMERICA website
has many of them.

For example, go
to the Internet address forVOA’s news site.Enter in
the search box, the word “tattoo”.The
following appears:

(ARTICLE)

Excellent
pro-con points pepper the above narrative, ideal for astudent’s prompt paper.Read the article then chooseits best sentence(s) to introduce the
prompt topic to the student.Actually,
the article title is a good place to start.In this case, the words “Young Americans” and “love” are clues to
possible motivating prompt questions:

Why do young Americanslove tattoos more than adults?In a two page, five paragraph essay support
your position using the above article.Likewise, use your own ideas to make your case.

Reading
the article reveals additional prompt lead-ins such as:Why or why not do more women than men choose
tattoos?Is the tattoo trend only among
youth or also among adults?Explain in a
two page essay your answer with supports from the article and your own
life.

The
above article is free for the students and instructor to use and print.This makes the VOA website a great resource
for prompts.In fact, the above article
resulted from a tattoo article in the Houston
Chronicle.Tattooed job seekers
wanted them removed before job interviews.Rather than rewriting the Chronicle
article, the authors sought a similar news article done by VOA reporters.

Similarly,
this works for other copyrighted articles ideal for a prompt.Choose a “buzz-word” or phrase to enter in
the VOA search field.Often, another
public domain article is found.The
Voice of America team aids English language students and developmental
educators. They are a credit not only to American English instructors but alsostudents around
the globe wanting to learn English as a second language.

* *
* * *

Having
selected the tattoo prompt background article and crafted the prompt,let’s determine
their readability level.Indeed, too
erudite an article defeats the purpose of a prompt: to persuade and motivate
the writer. Using the DEH Readability Calculator on the VOA article yields the
following result:

Like, the VOA
news stories, Wikipedia’s content is in the public domain.Applying the readability calculator gave too
high anease
level. (Grade level: 22, Word length: 2+ syllables,
Sentence length 30+ words) Yet, because the articles are so comprehensive, the
developmental educator can readily edit the content.This is recommended by the authors.Wikipedia is an exhaustive and valuable
prompt authoring resource.

Let’s
try it, i.e., making a Wikipedia article more readable.How about adding to the tattoo prompt
discussed earlier.Wikipedia has a
tattoo pro/con discussion useful for this exercise:

Here are some passages from
Wikipedia – about tattoos:

In the United States many
prisoners and criminal gangs use distinctive tattoos to indicate facts about
their criminal behavior, prison sentences, and organizational affiliation.[11] A tear tattoo,
for example, can be symbolic of murder, with each tear representing the death
of a friend. At the same time, members of the U.S. military have an equally well
established and longstanding history of tattooing to indicate military
units, battles, kills, etc., an association which remains widespread among
older Americans. Tattooing is also common in the British Armed Forces.

Insofar as this cultural
or sub-cultural
use of tattoos predates the widespread popularity of tattoos in the general
population, tattoos are still associated with criminality. Although the general
acceptance of tattoos is on the rise in Western society, they still carry a
heavy stigma among certain social groups.

The prevalence of women in the tattoo industry,
along with larger numbers of women bearing tattoos, is changing negative
perceptions. A study of "at-risk" (as defined by school absenteeism
and truancy) adolescent girls showed a positive correlation between
body-modification and negative feelings towards the body and self-esteem;
however, also illustrating a strong motive for body-modification as the search
for "self and attempts to attain mastery and control over the body in an
age of increasing alienation

Many U.S. prisoners and
criminal gangs use tattoos to suggest their crimes, sentences, and group.Tear tattoos, might mean murderers.Each tear for a
friend’s death. Similarly, U.S. soldiers have a tradition of tattoos
for military units, battles, kills, etc. This practicecontinues widely among U.S. adults. Itis also common
among the British soldiers.

Prison and military tattoospredate their
popularity with the public.Perhaps,
this is why tattoos remain associated with criminality. Although Westernsociety views
tattoos more acceptably , a heavystigma
remains among some social groups.

(Note: The lastparagraph of the
Wikipedia tattoo content is a tough gobbledygook challengefor readability editors.)

Larger numbers ofwomen tattooists bearing tattoos now
exist. Perhaps, as a result, the negative view of tattoos is less. A group studied "at-risk" teenage girls.These students were deemed “at risk” because
they were often truant. The study showed self-esteem for themselves and their bodies dropped along with being
tattooed.But the study also showed they desiredtattoos to
comfort themselves. This was their attempt to master and control their bodies
when they were feeling rejected.

This is indeed a tough one!After thirty minutes of editing, here’s the result.

At
least it has descended to a high school junior’s reading level.The words per sentence are fine at 13, but, ugh, too many big words!

Here’s
the final try:

Many U.S. felons and
their gangs use tattoos to suggest their crimes, sentences, and group.Tear tattoos, might mean killers.Each tear is for a friend’s death. Likewise, U.S. soldiers have a tattoo tradition for military units,
battles, kills, etc. British soldiers
also usethis practice.

Prison and military tattoos
predate public use.Perhaps, this is why
tattoos remain associated
with criminality. Though Westernsociety now accepts tattoos better, a stigma remains among some social groups.

More women tattooists wearing tattoos now exist.
Perhaps, as a result, the negative view of tattoos is less. There was astudy of "at-risk" teenage girls. These teens were viewed “at risk” because
they were often truant. Findings showed respect for themselves and
their bodies dropped along with being tattooed.But, also, the study found a
desire fortattoos
to comfort themselves. They tried to control their bodies with tattoos when they felt rejected.

The final edit succeeds!A seventh grader can easily read the
passage.The sentences averageabout 10
words with words not more than 1.6
syllables on average. Notice how the
total word count drops as readability/clarity increases: from 577 words, to 208
words, to a final count of but 151 words.The 577wordGoliath was ponderous and difficult to understand.The crisp 151 word boy David has clarity.David
had five stones but only needed one to do the job.